The Hands of Fate
by jess4795
Summary: Fate is there to weave and guide you along the path of life. What happens when someone else messes with fate and disrupts the balance of life. What can one soul do to tip the scales back? Will Sakura be able to cope with the changes in her life and will she be able to save them all? Non-mass, SasuSaku and other pairings.


_Here's a new story. Hope you guys like it! _

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Long ago, I thought that the world was beautiful. Our lives were full and our hearts were without wanting. Such a serene, peaceful place. That all changed the day that I died. What I awoke to was to a world that was cold and harsh. Life nothing more than a fleeting moment of insignificant time. A world where I was not born in, but sent to by the hands of fate.

I was told that my death, though orchestrated, was not tragic. A simple slow death caused by kidney failure at age twenty seven. I didn't care how I had died. My only agony was that I had left something very precious behind. As the moments passed by each and every memory began to fade into oblivion. There was nothing that I could do, I was meant to forget everything. All that they needed was my soul.

As I became a shell of who I was, they told me of the importance of why I was standing here. Someone in this time line had tampered with fate. The world had veered off course in a direction that would spell the end of humanity. This time they could not fix it. They had sent their strongest tools, only to be met with failure. My soul was the last, the weakest. I could not be given much help. All that they could do was cross threads of life along the path of time to try to create small events, that over time might cascade into a world altering one. I am not meant to be the hero of this time line, but fate's catalyst. A soul that can weave these threads tightly together.

There is not much of me left and I can feel the rising panic. I am seconds away from being sent, empty, to a body that is not my own. Nothing that I could say would even allow one atom to remain. A second more and there was nothing but a sense of loss. A nanosecond later I was empty, soul less and falling fast into the black.

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Fate had dealt her an ugly hand. She was standing there next to her body. So small and frail. Her eyes where a deep moss that looked on her lifeless form with great pain. Rivers of red pooled and met creating an intricate display of mortality. There had not been enough time. She had just started, only to have it end just as fast by a brutal war that she did not understand. Everything was lost. Her home. Her family. Her life. So she stood there, moss colored eyes that could not cry but showed the world her agony.

It took her a while to notice another presence. Her petite frame turned around to find a much older woman standing there. Her eyes, the color of the darkest brown, met the young girl's without a hint of emotion. The woman's gait was calculated as she moved closer to the girl. A slender hand reached out to touch the forehead of the now cold body. Moss eyes watched in wonder as her blood moved, clumped, and poured back into her open wounds. Hope filled the young girl. This woman was sent here to help return her torn soul to her body. But the longer she watched herself heal, the more she noticed that she was not being pulled toward herself but pushed away. With an overwhelming sense of dread she looked at the woman next to her.

Brown eyes were still boring into her green eyes, but the frame of the woman was slowly flaking away and seeping into her healing body. The girl looked down to her hands and noticed that she too was fading. She turned her head in the direction that her essence was flowing toward, but all she could see behind her was black. Four years was all she had ,and her future, what ever it may be, looked bleak. She could barely manage to raise her hand to touch the woman's forehead. Her moss eyes pleaded with the woman's brown to take a small part of her back to the world of the living. A faint nod of the head was all the confirmation she received before the young girl completely faded.

A heart fluttered, blood flowed and skin returned to a peach hue. Small pants of breath escaped, as a small frame rolled over. Minutes later long dark lashes opened to reveal eyes of the deepest green that were interwoven with chocolate. A quiet groan escaped a parched throat as a look of confusion spread across her flushed face. What had happened? Her eyes roamed over the gruesome scene around her. There was a body not two feet from her. It was a man's. His face was contorted in pain and his arm was stretched across her. She did not know him. Slowly she raised herself up, and moved away from the man. She was standing in the middle of a blood bath. There were bodies everywhere. A woman in the corner, a teenaged boy and another small child were crumpled together, and an elderly woman all lay on the floor in various forms of dismemberment. She still did not know any of them.

Had she done this? Was that even possible? She began to make her way carefully out of the room. When she reached the threshold she found a mirror. What she saw shocked her. Her small frame looked as though she had been battered and beaten within an inch of her life. Experimentally she moved her limbs. Confusion marred her face. There was no pain, no strain in her muscles, just the fluid movement of healthy limbs. Once again she glanced back at the dead around her. A sharp prickling sensation of dread lodged its way in her throat. She had done this. The congealing blood that seeped into her pores, was not her own. Her panicked eyes roamed the blood stained room for proof, any microscopic evidence that could absolve her would be enough. Dark green eyes landed on an image enclosed by a frame. The dead were hers. She stood among them smiling, laughing. Her family.

A small stream of a sound escaped her lips, it bubbled and burped until it broke into the loud roaring of a guttural scream. She had killed her family. Her throat flexed and burned with the scream that she could not stop. Knees bent and buckled as her hands slapped into the stained floor. Her sounds changed from agony to the retched upheaval of whatever her previous meal had been. Guilt flowed through her veins. Pumped into every inch of her soul. Her head throbbed with the knowledge as she stared into the glazed green eyes of her still lukewarm mother. Instinct propelled her into movement. Her back arched, thigh muscles stretched and aligned her into a position of retreat. So she ran. She left a trail of red imprints behind her as she desperately searched for a way out. Anything to get her away from here.

Her small hand found her escape as it pushed open a door. What she found gave her no sense of relief. She stood in what can only be described as a battlefield. A large wall of fire erupted through what she assumed was her village. The heat was intense as it baked her skin. But the flames lasted only a moment, they were snuffed out as the very ground folded in on itself. Attached to each otherworldly attack was a person. They danced and glided around one another with every intent to hit the other. The sky would burn, the air would sound of boulders crashing and then the bright light of flames would return. Each attack would merely roll off only to be rebounded in another attempt. She did not know how long she stood there mesmerized before she noticed the boy standing in the street looking at her.

He stood there, red eyes clouded with an emotion she could not place. Her heart hammered in her ears drowning out any other sound. The boy's legs made a motion towards her, while hers rocked her back. A small calf connected with a door frame. Realization hit her and a absolute dread filled her. There was no way she could go back in there. An easy escape did not lay in the path ahead of her. The boy slowly held up his hands in manner that told her that he meant her no harm. She stood frozen at her home's threshold. A sensation of surprise shook her as she felt a cold hand grab tightly onto her upper arm, then the sensation of flying met her. Her body turned allowing her back to scrape against the hard ground. Green eyes shut and a hiss of pain flew from her mouth. A bright red glow bloomed behind her closed lids. Heat flared up her body. An eye cracked open revealing a world engulfed in flame. There the boy stood where she had just been, breathing a mass of flames. What caught her attention next was the cry of a man that popped and burned in the wake of the boy's inferno.

His breath was labored, she could tell by the quick rise and fall of his shoulders. His mouth down turned in distaste at what he had just done. Slowly his red eyes moved from the burning heap to her. She could not move. His eyes were the color of death and reminded her to much of the bloody room she had just vacated. Before she knew it, he was upon her. A soft cold hand reached out and moved her bangs from her eyes. He seemed to notice her state of terror, retracted his hand and closed his eyes. Her breathing slowed as she watched his face melt into one of calm. His eyes opened again revealing two black pools.

"Are you hurt?" His voice was soft and not that of a mans, but of one to have yet to meet puberty. She could not fathom what he wanted from her. Her head shook side to side to answer his question. "Are you the only one?" At this question her green eyes widened in terror. Would he burn her alive like his enemy when he found out what she had done? "I am sorry that I was not faster. I thought you were dead along with them."

A mixture of hope and confusion crossed her face. Her mouth opened air rushed out but no sound. On her second attempt she managed a weak. "What happened?"

A small sad smile reached his lips. "I was sent here to gather your family and bring them back to my home. I found a rock nin standing over your families bodies." He looked deeper into my eyes as he searched for something. "You were dead." A cold look of calculation spread through his dark eyes that made her shiver. "Do you remember what happened?" Her small voice became airy as she explained how she woke up and how she believed she had been the one to kill her family. "Do you remember anything before that?" She shook her head no.

His hand reached out in an offer. Hers still stained crimson reached out to this stranger. As their hands clasped a small jolt of recognition flew through her. Though as she traced the lines of his face she did not know who he was. "What is your name?" Nothing she could do would allow her to come up with any answer. "You don't remember that either." It wasn't a question, just a way for him to confirm what he already knew. His dark eyes still bore into hers as she watched him calculate his next words. "Is there anything that you wish to not leave behind?" At her blank stare, he let out a soft sigh. "Just stay right here. I will be right back."

He left her standing there in the middle of her ruined town. Homes, shops and bodies burned in the aftermath of his battle. Her green eyes searched around trying to find anything that looked familiar to her but nothing did. She knew that this was her home, she knew those dead bodies were her family. But there were no memories to put faces with their corresponding emotions. She could feel but did not know why. Who was she? Her mind searched for answers but all it could dredge up were the last few minutes that had passed. When she looked beyond that all she found was a black pit. Dark, dead and uninviting. It was like she did not exist. She was shaken from her thoughts when the boy returned. He handed her a small photo frame. It was the same one that had sent her running from the house. In his other hand he held a small bag.

At her inquiring eyes he mention to her that they were a change of clothes for her and other things that he thought might help her remember things. "It's time that we go. There is a long journey ahead of us."

At this she looked over at him. "Where?"

"To my home. Your new home. Konoha." At this he reached out his hand to her. She clasped it because there was nothing else she could do. They turned their backs exposing to the flames of the dead an Uchiha fan and a once white circle stained red.

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Beneath the boughs of an ancient tree lies a lake. It is deep, pure and full. Three young women sit at the edge, each immersed in their own task. One cuts thin strips of bark from the ancient tree to be seasoned high in the boughs of the ash tree. When the bark has aged and dried a second maiden soaks these strips in water and then systematically cuts them into smaller strips. She then slowly weaves the bark together forming long lines of cordage. A third examines the cordage. She weighs the knots, notes the imperfections, and cuts the line when she has finally judged. These women are as ancient as the tree they pull their work from.

Their task never done, hands always in motion. They are long forgotten amongst men. Though they have not forgotten them. There was a time that they were celebrated and even feared. But as the line of cordage is flowed through each of their hands, so too does time. They have seen the ages of man. From prehistoric, feudal, industrial, modern, and on through the millennium to the age of shinobi. What the fates have come to realize is that like each woven life that passes through their hands has an end, so too does the life of mankind. They do not know when. They just know that it is not now. But as each day passes by Uror seasons less bark for Veroandi to weave, and Skuld has been set to the task of cutting cordage short.

Life is fleeting, but someone has stepped in to mess with the hands of fate. The three searched and located the disturbance but found they could not just simply cut the line. Everything that they tried failed until they had to turn to their last resort. For not all of the cut cordage is laid to rot at the base of the tree. A few strands have been saved. Ones where the life was lived in honor, strength, and courage. These souls were not placed back into the life blood of the ancient tree, but kept for later use. Fate was on it's last cord. A soul taken from a time where there was no honor to uphold, no strength to stand with and definitely no option for courage. Why Skuld had seen fit to keep this soul was unknown. But now she is their only hope.

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It's short but I just wanted to throw this idea out there to see what you thought of it. Please review!


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